NEW YORK (TheStreet) --SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. is planning on cutting almost 300 jobs across its 11 park enterprise, as the animals for entertainment and theme park operator continues to be faced with backlash regarding the treatment of the marine mammals in its care, the Wall Street Journal reports. SeaWorld said last week that the job cuts would be part of its restructuring program, when it announced its current CEO, Jim Atchison, would be stepping down effective January 15, 2015. Shares of SeaWorld are higher by 1.43% to $15.65 in pre-market trading on Wednesday morning. STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more. The company was not specific about which positions would be eliminated, but said the changes would take place at its 11 parks and at its headquarters, the Journal added. On Tuesday afternoon the company said in a regulatory filing that the plan would save almost $50 million a year by the end of 2015, the Journal noted. SeaWorld also announced changes to its buyback program, which allows the company to repurchase up to $15 million in shares beginning today. The buybacks are a part of the company's previously announced $250 million share repurchase program, which was originally scheduled to begin on January 1, 2015. SeaWorld is working to improve its image and win back its audience as it has been dealing with a wave of criticism following last year's documentary Blackfish. The film alleges prolonged captivity makes the company's star attraction, performing killer whales, unstable, dangerous, and prone to aggression, which it suggests is what led to multiple whale on human attacks, and resulted in the deaths of four people. In November SeaWorld said its attendance was down 4.7% for the first nine months of 2014, the Journal said. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates VERIFONE SYSTEMS INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate VERIFONE SYSTEMS INC (PAY) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and solid stock price performance. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that we feel that the company's cash flow from its operations has been weak overall." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: The revenue growth came in higher than the industry average of 6.2%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 13.5%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share. The debt-to-equity ratio is somewhat low, currently at 0.85, and is less than that of the industry average, implying that there has been a relatively successful effort in the management of debt levels. Along with the favorable debt-to-equity ratio, the company maintains an adequate quick ratio of 1.13, which illustrates the ability to avoid short-term cash problems. The company's current return on equity greatly increased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of significant strength within the corporation. Compared to other companies in the IT Services industry and the overall market, VERIFONE SYSTEMS INC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500. Net operating cash flow has declined marginally to $51.68 million or 5.90% when compared to the same quarter last year. In conjunction, when comparing current results to the industry average, VERIFONE SYSTEMS INC has marginally lower results. You can view the full analysis from the report here: PAY Ratings Report STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more.
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